Chinese smartphone makers gaining momentum

TrendForce recently announced its Q3 smartphone shipment figures and they were in line with expectations.

Total shipments are expected to hit 250 million units, up 11.6 percent sequentially and 36 percent year-on-year. Samsung managed to ship 78 million phones, while Apple didn’t do very well with 33 million units. However, Apple has introduced two new iPhones and its shipments are expected to rebound in Q4.

All quiet on the western front it seems, but there’s some interesting news from China. Chinese smartphone outfits saw a 20.5 percent increase in Q3 shipments – nearly double the industry average. Huawei is still top dog with 15 million units, but Lenovo is gaining ground. The PC churner shipped 13 million smartphones last quarter and it’s about to expand to western markets.

Competitive pressure is also increasing. There are a few more players capable of shipping ten or more million units and there are dozens if not hundreds of white-box smartphone makers. Around 180 designs are expected to show up in the second half of the year and the companies are able to quickly develop new models with a good price/performance ratio thanks to reference platforms from Qualcomm and Mediatek.

However, TrendForce believes many white-box players simply don’t have what it takes to remain competitive in the long run, so a number of them are expected to exit the market.